i get random sudden urges to do x or y, and get super invested for like hours (maybe days), and when i stop for like more than 10 minutes, even if reluctantly, I'd lose all interest immediately and refuse to get back to it, even if it were to add like a teensy <<2 minute minor change, and never get back to it for months.

and even amidst this extreme interest to, say a really cool and fascinating podcast, i would still end up pausing ever 20 mins or less to just go off and do something else, like roll around in bed, read some random passage from an unrelated book, watch a 2 min video online that I'll forget etcetc.

if i cant even commit to the things i like, god knows I'm going to fail when it comes to: picking up trash in my room from the floor to the trashbin barely a meter away, doing short essay for boring school subject, fixing the crooked poster that's bothering me above my bed (where i spend most my time.)

sometimes i cant even bring myself to do things I'm excited and really want to do. as if laying in bed staring at the ceiling, berating myself for being mad stupid is a preferable situation. and then have the audacity to go 'wow there's nothing to do, I'm so bored, why is everything so boring?'

like right now, schools about to start, i should be preparing my stuffs, read schedules, see who's in my class. or, yk, study so i can understand the highly complex subject my literal dream career needs me to understand, but nooo if it isn't related to this really cool book i just read and fell in love with, it can just screw right off!! (i have, concerningly, spent 20 hours a day this past week alone just rereading it, and making stuffs dedicated to it.) (im on track to lose interest in 2 more days, as much as i dont want it to be so)

sorry for the bad english and the probably repetitive and obvious question (of which the answer to will probably just be 'lock in', and I'm just too much in denial to accept it, sigh). my future is cooked, how do i expect to have good academics as well as juggle my 8 hobbies or something with a mindset like this.

I didn’t understand how to wake up early before. I used to set an alarm but ended up turning it off then going back to sleep. I learned that that’s not how to wake up early. 

Waking up early meant sleeping earlier. When I want to wake up around 5 am, I’ll be sleeping around 10 pm. I observed that I sleep around 6 - 8 hrs everyday, and it’s leaning towards 6 hours. So I count backwards. 

It also helps to keep my phone in another room when I’m sleeping. The presence of the phone itself is distracting. I also take a bath before sleeping. I wear a blackout eye mask and turn up the AC.

When I wake up, the first thing I do is cold drink water. I observed that I’m already awake by then. The cherry on top is getting sunlight. Or even if there’s no sunlight yet, I go outside for air. That helps a lot.

And I’m saying this not because I have the “perfect routine” and that I do it everyday. This is what I do when I want to wake up early the next day. So I know it works for me. 

What do you do when you want to wake up early? What benefits do you think comes from waking up early? Or is it some bs that people tried to push onto people?

I read a lot of top 10 list of productivity tools - my fav right now is a mix of del based tools that can generate websites and apps as well as good old fashioned video editing tools but rather than a AI slop top 10 what's one or two tools you actually use that's say on your mobile or desk top - AI platforms welcome but not the silly ones like turn your hand drawn meeting notes notes into songs etc.

I can have one tiny task to do all day, like replying to a message or making a quick call, and still keep putting it off.

It’s not even difficult. I know it will probably take five minutes, but starting it feels impossible for some reason.

Then it becomes urgent and suddenly I can do it, along with ten other things, in one go.

I’ve been using Nitya habit tracker to track my routines and write quick notes about the days I avoid things. I’m starting to realise that remembering the task isn’t really the problem. Starting is.

What actually helps you get started when there’s no deadline or urgency?

Hi all! First time posting here, I hope I can articulate myself well here! I'm writing this on my work break and want to put it all out before it disappears!

So, I don't want to dump too many of the details here (I can if someone asks, but it's honestly convoluted as all get out) but the basic back-story of my current predicament is:

I have an absolutely massive project, right? And I had finished the first phase of it! But then, some things happened, and now I have to redo the first phase of this project (it's not *as* much work as the last time, but still a lot). It's really tedious, honestly boring work, and my motivation for this redo is frankly down the toilet, especially since I was so close to being able to move to the next steps.

Nowadays, my productivity compared to the first time has halved, and all I can think about is the exciting things I can do once I'm finished with this redo ... So, I guess my question/plea for advice is:

* How do I pick back up the motivation to do something again, after I thought I'd finished it? How do I make that exhaustion/"ugh" feeling go away?

* How do I stop daydreaming about a future I haven't made happen yet?

I have relatively modest expectations of myself, but they feel slightly perfectionist at the same time. I don't expect myself to be great at everything, or to rise up the career ladder, or to be elite in all of the activities I do, but I have a hard time keeping myself on track with my daily life. The following are my biggest problems:

1. Binge eating
2. Wasting time reading on the internet
3. Staying on task at work

I have found that when I have perfect days the days are good. If I never eat something unexpected, or never read anything on the internet, or never stop working once I start, then my day is productive. On the other hand, if I eat one thing out of order, or I read one article or have one thing to google during my work day, there's a good possibility I will spend the rest of the day compulsively eating, reading on the internet, and slacking off on work. I'm less likely to do my exercise, I have a harder time keeping up with chores around the house. It really feels like everything falls apart.

I have tried a whole host of things to keep me on track but here are some examples:

1. Not having snack foods at home

2. Result: I eat dumb things as a snack instead. For example, sandwich bread with maple syrup

3. Blocking the web browser and news on my phone

4. Result: I now read Slack messages, look on google maps, or read spotify artist descriptions

I used to like to get all of my things done in a specific order in the morning so that I knew that everything would be done, but now that I have young children, my schedule is more chaotic. I am blessed to work from home, which gives me more time to get things done around the house, do my exercise, etc., and while it does increase the availability of distractions, I had big problems focussing at work when I worked in an office as well. While the office was beneficial by limiting food availability, it did nothing to limit internet access.

These challenges make me think uncomfortable thoughts. I sometimes wish I could live alone with no food and no internet and no phone, and go work in a job that requires interaction with real people. This lifestyle would free me from all of my weaknesses, but I'm sure that new ones would pop up, not to mention the fact that this desire is incompatible with my family.

I would love for a magic bullet but I know there isn't one. Maybe others relate to these problems and have come up with better solutions than the ones I have. It feels like I tighten the belt and just come up with dumber ways to waste my time

Okay so this is kinda specific but maybe someone gets it.

I don’t really struggle with focus. My issue is smaller. During calls, Slack, and email I say yes to random stuff like “I’ll send that tonight” or “I’ll look at this tomorrow.” Then the day just keeps going and I forget until someone pings me later.

I’ve tried to-do apps. The problem is I almost never stop in the moment to write the task down, so the list never matches real life.

Looking for a simple workflow that catches these follow-ups without creating more work. What’s actually worked for you?

I don't know if social media has completely ruined me but i feel like i'm constantly collecting new interests At the start of the year i wanted to read more books, so i kept saving recommendations like Project Hail Mary, The Martian, and The Spellshop. Then my T!kTok turned into café videos, restaurant reviews, travel itineraries, and recipes i swear i'm going to make one day. Throw in movies my friends keep telling me to watch, videos i wanted to come back to, and random workout routines i saved for "next Monday" and now i've got recommendations scattered literally everywhere.

The problem isn't finding new things anymore... it's remembering where i saved them. 

I've got saved posts from Facebook, Instagram collections, T!kTok favorites,notes, bookmarks, and hundreds of screenshots. Half the time i know i've already saved something, i just have no clue which app it's hiding in.

Does anyone use an app to organize your interests that's actually easy to stick with? Not really looking for another productivity app or habit tracker. I just want one place where i can keep books, movies, restaurants, travel ideas, recipes, and everything else without jumping between six different apps.

Our organization has been using Google Workspace for about a decade. I usually handle my email right in the Gmail interface.

However, what I really want is to be able to drag my emails into established columns. Kind of like Trello. Every morning I could come in and just drag everything where it belongs. Labels work very well, but the little tags don't seem to grab my attention. I should mention that I have ADD.

Even if I could order the emails in the inbox manually, that would be a huge help.

Since there isn't an email app that will do this, does anyone have ideas for special add-ons or style scripts that might help? Alternatively, maybe a different way to approach this outside the email inbox?

Hi, I'm 30M and I've always struggled with focus and concentration, and keeping my attention span consistent for long periods of time. I have been going to therapy recently and, while I DON'T have ADHD, I do suffer from severe ocd, anxiety and self esteem issues which causes ADHD adjacent symptoms. This means, however, that my brain can technically improve permanently the ability to focus without any limitation.

I know the best course of action is to take care of my rumination and intrusive thoughts and anxiety episodes, which is what detriments my attention span, working memory and focus the most. However, I would like to ask you for exercises that can generally improve attention not just in the moment, but in general by considering my focus capacity as a skill that can be improved, like training memory for example.

I've also thought about getting my brain used to having to focus consistently through the day (recently I had surgery so I'll have a few weeks for myself during recovery before returning to work) by constantly challenging myself to watch movies, educational videos, write stuff, etc and trying my best to start and finish them in one go, without breaks or distractions. Will this constant flurry of attempts at keeping attention actually improve focus over time for a non ADHD brain, or is it a waste of time? Thanks.

I want to get up early to work out. I wake up so tired that I end up lying in bed until the last second and I have to rush around and make myself later to work than I want to be. Sometimes I don't even go back to sleep!

Tips and tricks for getting up at at 'em in the morning? Lay them in me-please!

Hello, I’m a college student in her early twenties. Recently many things came up in my personal life back to back and I fell off track basically. Also I struggle with being consistent a lot. I need advice to how to consistently stick to my goals and I also want to improve my academics this semester. I feel like I’m always rushing and putting off things until the last minute.

My employer provided a Microsoft account which comes with minimum AI features. It is not a good idea to use the department budget for an AI subscription. What should I do?

I have a serious problem with "productive procrastination."

I will literally spend hours setting up the perfect Notion workspace, color-coding my Google Calendar, writing out detailed daily schedules, and researching the best new to-do list apps. But when it's actually time to sit down and do the hard work, I freeze or immediately reach for my phone.

It feels like I'm tricking my brain into feeling productive because I'm busy organizing things, but at the end of the day, no actual tasks are checked off. I have the perfect system, but zero execution.

Has anyone successfully broken out of this cycle of endless planning? How do you force yourself to stop tweaking your systems and just start the ugly, unorganized, actual work?

Lets design some process or pls share your tips

I use social media mainly to collect useful ideas and inspiration. I save hairstyles, outfits, restaurants, places to visit, design references for work, products, tutorials, and many other things.

The problem is that I now have far too many collections. Whenever I save a post, I have to scroll manually through a long list to find the correct folder. Since this takes too much time, I usually put everything into one large “inbox” collection.

That inbox has now become a black hole. It contains a lot of useful material, but I cannot easily find anything when I actually need it.

Has anyone developed a simple and sustainable system for this?

Pick a time when you are at your mental peak to read. You'll enjoy your reading more, and it will motivate you to read daily. In contrast, you won't get much from reading if you're tired or have low mental alertness.

Set aside at least 60 minutes for reading at your mental peak. Review your daily routine to identify when you're most mentally alert and see if you can dedicate 60 minutes each day to reading.

You may not need to spend the entire 60 minutes reading, but ensure you give yourself those 60 minutes just for reading.

I get a lot done within a short time. My friends and manager called me an overachiever. But by the end of the day I genuinely can't remember what I actually did. Everything I finish just falls out of my head the second it's done, and I end up feeling like I accomplished nothing — even when I know that's not true.

I've tried keeping a running doc in Notion but it felt too heavy to open every time, and a note in my phone that I then never actually go back and read.

I'm curious how other people handle this:

• Do you keep any kind of "done" list, brag doc, work journal — anything? How often do you write down your accomplishments?
• And has it actually helped you feel like you've done something, or does it just sit there?
• Or do you not bother and it's honestly fine?

What do you do to relax at home alone? How much productive vs relaxing do you do?

Does anyone need veg time every day. Like hour or two just scrolling, TV, news? How much productive time do you put in every day? I do probably one to two hours working out, cooking, cleaning and guitar. But then have times when I just veg. Feel unproductive when I do.

By self-nerfing, I mean that when I have an assignment to do, if I expect it to take 30 minutes, but then I realize that I can get it done in actually 10 minutes, I would just wait 20 minutes before starting the task to fill up the time. This usually doesn't bode well for me because I usually have many tasks throughout the day I need to get done, but they usually don't get done because I don't work as efficiently as I should.

Any tips on how to overcome this?

And sometimes, I feel like when I get a task done quicker than usual, I intentionally slow down and just do anything but be productive. I feel like there is something happening psychologically, as if I am fearing what would happen if I work too fast and move through my assignments/tasks too quick or something.

Any advice?

Anyone else run into this: you're working on a project with ChatGPT or Claude, but every new chat means re-explaining everything from scratch — what you've done, what you decided, what's next?

I started keeping a simple running doc for this (goal, status, decisions, next step) and pasting it at the start of new chats. It's made a real difference in how fast I can pick up where I left off.

Curious how others handle this — notes app, specific tool, or just re-explaining each time?

So I have issues with being motivated and have tried to use that by maintaining discipline,m learning to do things even if I dont feel like it and combined with mindfulness. And while it does kind of help, it's just so hard bc of how dead I feel inside doing things I have to do for the day, more often than not. Like going to work, assignments among other things. It's sometimes bad enough that i feel like there's a "void" inside me, that i feel "empty". With mindfulness, it makes me much more aware of myself and my surroundings, which is great, but that also means the chronic emptiness inside me (sorry to sound very corny), not necessarily sadness but pervasive boredom, i dont even feel like there's a "real me" so to speak, everything I do and think, feel etc are distractions from that emptiness, which isn't inherently bad. Distractions include doing productive things to keep my mind off that chronic emptiness. But it can get mentally tiring more often than not, which ironically makes me try to find an easy distraction like doom scrolling, looking for the path of least resistance to escape from that chronic emptiness instead of harder but better "distractions" like literally anything more productive. Also i can get to the other extreme of going down into a slump when there's absolutely no distractions and I just feel like a zombie and very sleepy.

So how do I get used to this emptiness and being okay with it and moving on, being mindful and therefore more intentional while not being overwhelmed by this

Where's the file? 

Obvious.

What's next?

Obvious.

Where do new notes go?

Obvious.

The less your brain has to figure out repeatedly, the more energy you have for actual work.

What question has your system completely eliminated?